


Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

by tisfan



Series: The Fish Tank and other Creature AUs [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cat Tony, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Shifter AU, Wolf Bucky, cats and dogs living together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-11 15:12:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12937944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Bucky shapeshifts by accident while he is asleep, and his boyfriend is so smol!





	Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunatical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunatical/gifts).



> A/n: this belongs in the same universe as [Also Prey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10231409/chapters/22700030), Truth about Cats & Dogs, and First, They Must Catch You, but reading those is not necessary for this. The world is made up of shifters, each person has an animal form; Bucky is a gray wolf (and he can shift because the arm is made up of quicksilver, which adapts to whatever form he’s in) and Tony is a little black cat.

_“I have a mission for you. Sanction and extract. No witnesses.”_

_Vasily Karpov is a hard man. The soldier-wolf whines, scrunching his body close to the floor. He knows what is coming next. Pain, deprivation. Cold. The pads of his paws ache; the are cracked and bleeding and they won’t heal. Not if he isn’t fed._

_“Get what I need, then eat.”_

_The soldier-wolf shivers, shaking his coat. The mission is set. He will complete his mission, and then maybe, maybe, he will be allowed to eat, to rest._

_There are handlers, leashes and spiked collars at the ready; they will take the soldier-wolf closer in their man-things, and then he will run, and run, and hunt and kill…._

_“Help my wife… help her… please.”_

_The soldier-wolf’s teeth crush the male’s throat. He will take care of the female; she can’t run…_

Bucky jerked awake, the taste of blood still in his mouth. He flailed with a spike of sudden panic, not knowing where he was, or how he got there. One moment he was in the half-light of an old road outside of DC, his muzzle stained with blood, the next moment, it was dark and--

Smells assaulted his sensitive nose; blood. Sweat.

_Cat._

He snarled, the animal in him--

The animal that he _was_.

Disoriented.

He hadn’t gone to sleep shifted. He didn’t do that. He never slept shifted. The panic, returned to Hydra, in the form that couldn’t think as clearly, didn’t remember as much--

He whimpered, the whine in his throat low and frightened. He needed a handler, someone to tell him what he was supposed to be doing, someone to--

Smell of blood.

Smell of _cat_.

He licked his muzzle.

Lifted his head and stared around the room. Something had drawn his attention.

Gradually his eyes adjusted; he picked the small, fluffy shape out. Perched on a high shelf, eying Bucky with suspicion, was a pair of gleaming, golden eyes with wide-pupils. A tail that lashed back and forth.

Bucky gasped, let the flavor of the air shift over his tongue, reached, and… changed. Twisted, the aching stretch of muscle and bone, blood and hair. “Oh, God, Tony,” he said, reaching out for Tony’s cat-form. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, are you okay?” His stomach clenched and froze.

Shifting in his sleep was dangerous, he could hurt even a human, his claws and teeth were brutal and efficient. But he could -- would -- kill Tony if he was caught unaware in his cat form; his boyfriend was tiny, no more than eight pounds. Even if Bucky rolled over on him, in his human form -- the quicksilver arm weighed at least ten times what Tony did.

He could crush Tony.

Oh god.

Bucky couldn’t breathe. He was smothering under the weight of his guilt and fear. What the hell was he thinking that he could be with a cat-shifter? Hell, what was he thinking that he could be with anyone at all? He was practically rabid. Worse than rabid, because he looked so damn normal, but he was dangerous, _deadly_.

His chest ached. His heart was pounding.

His human eyes couldn’t focus, and he’d lost his keen sense of smell with the change.

He gasped for air, trying to focus.

He was going crazy. Everything swam around him, the room wasn’t stable and he threw his hands out, trying to anchor himself to _something_ before he was spun right off the world.

“Hey,” a warm voice, soft, close by but not touching. “Hey, Bucky, baby. Sweetheart. Come on, I know. Oh, I know it hurts, I know. You’re not sick. You’re not crazy. It’s all right. I know, it feels like shit, baby, I know. But I need you to try to slow down your breathing. Can you just breathe with me? Just a few. Like this. Deep, in through your nose, out the mouth.”

He was curled up on himself, arms over his head, protecting himself. He couldn’t look up, couldn’t speak. But he could breathe.

A bit. One desperate gasp.

Another.

“Good job, honey. That’s good. Okay, just ride it out. I know, I know, but it’ll stop soon. You’re safe. You’re okay. I won’t let anything happen to you, honey. I’m right here. Can I-- can I touch you? I know I’d feel better if I can put a hand on you. Just to let you know you’re okay. I’m okay.”

Bucky still couldn’t speak; his jaw was clenched so tight that pain radiated from his teeth all the way up through the front of his skull and he couldn’t seem to stop, like he was holding screams behind his teeth and that if he relaxed, even a little, he’d start screaming and never be able to stop. But he could nod, and he did that.

Tony’s hand came down, soft, hesitant, on the back of Bucky’s neck. “It’s okay, honey,” he said, soothingly.

Except Bucky knew that was bullshit; his breathing sped up again. It wasn’t okay, and Tony wasn’t safe.

Bucky should be put down, he was… he was ruined.

“No, no, honey,” Tony was saying, and Bucky realized he’d given some of those thoughts voice, and he ground his teeth together even harder, because Bucky could have killed Tony, he didn’t deserve Tony’s comfort, that was just wrong. It was _wrong_ , it was… “Anxiety’s not dangerous, honey. It’s uncomfortable, yeah, sure, but you’re fine. You have feelings you don’t like, I get that, I get it. I’ve been there. These… they’re like dreams. It’ll fade. It _always_ fades.”

“I could hurt you,” Bucky managed, the words torn out of his throat, aching and impossible to take back. Impossible to deny.

“You could,” Tony said, soothingly, and even in the midst of his nightmare fog, Bucky appreciated that Tony wasn’t lying to him, wasn’t brushing it off, wasn’t…

“I could hurt you!” Bucky said it again, like that made it more true, made it more likely.

“You know, I almost killed Pepper once,” Tony said, matter-of-fact. “I summoned the suit in my sleep. It was an inch away from killing her when I woke up. Neither of us is what you might call a gentle individual. I’m tough, honey. I can take it.”

“I could--”

“You shifted while you were sleeping,” Tony said. “Let me ask you a question, honey. You ever, ever sneak up on a cat?”

“What? No, what?”

Tony gave him a brilliant smile, and when had Bucky managed to look up? Open his eyes, and see Tony’s beautiful, perfect face. “I’ll be fine, honey,” Tony said. “I mean, it’s not like you can’t sneak up on me, if you’re really trying, but first off, you have to not smell like dog when you do it. That’s an automatic danger scent to my cat-body. As soon as you started to shift, I was awake. I shifted, myself, to get out of your way, and then it was a little hard to shift back, because cat. And sometimes I get a little tense. Trust me, honey, you’re not the only one with a truck full of issues around here. You didn’t even have a tail by the time I was on the top of the bookshelf.”

“You shouldn’t have to be scared of me,” Bucky said. Tears prickled at his eyes, he didn’t want Tony to be afraid, hadn’t Tony been afraid entirely too often already?

“I’m no more afraid of you than I am of Thor falling on me,” Tony said. “Because wow, that would probably be pretty uncomfortable, don’t you think? I mean, he weighs like six hundred pounds. I don’t even want to think how he and Jane manage-- no, I mean, just no?”

Bucky’s brain rebelled against that particular image. He hadn’t put that together, really, and now that he’d thought about it, he really didn’t want to be thinking about it. But it was like having someone say “don’t think about green elephants,” and suddenly emerald pachyderms were the thought of the hour.

“Are you tryin’ to distract me?”

“Is it working?”

“A little,” Bucky admitted. Green elephants, and Thor trying not to squash his girlfriend during foreplay and--

“Thor and Jane have been together for several years, baby,” Tony pointed out. “And he hasn’t flattened her yet. We’re still adjusting to being together. It’ll get easier. This is… just a temporary setback. We’ll work it out. We’ll figure it out. You’ll see. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

That was an entirely different sort of panic, the thought of losing Tony, of Tony deciding to leave, and that--

“Shhhh, baby,” Tony said, running his hand over Bucky’s back, threading through his hair. “I love you. I’m not going anywhere. I promise. Staying right here with you. Always.”

“Okay, okay, I’m okay,” Bucky said, and he wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince, but it calmed him down.

“I know you are, honey,” Tony said. “We’re okay. Everything’s gonna turn out okay. We’ll make it through this, one night at a time.”

Bucky nodded, shivering. He knew that nothing was ever going to be totally okay, but it could be better.

“Look, here’s my suggestion; let’s try sleeping as animals, instead, okay? We’ll both be a little more situationally aware, even when we’re sleeping, and if you shift in the middle of the night, you’re a lot less likely to hurt either of me, okay?”

“And you like sleepin’ as a cat.”

“And I like sleeping _on you_ , as a cat,” Tony pointed out.

Bucky nodded, and then _reached,_ blood and bone and fang and fur. By the time he shuddered into himself, Tony was already a cat, purring and stropping himself against Bucky’s muzzle.

It was very, very tempting to lick Tony.

Bucky let his tongue loll out, mouth dropping open in a canine grin.

Tony flattened his ears, briefly. _Don’t._

Bucky wuffled, nudged Tony with his nose, and Tony bounced onto Bucky’s shoulder, curling up in a neat little ball.

It was easier… soothing. _Safe_. To fall asleep with Tony purring in his ear, a warm blob of soft fur and tickly whiskers.

They slept, dreamless and secure, for the rest of the night.


End file.
